Constructed by the US Army in 1828 for making munitions originally. In the late 1880s the arsenal was used to confine captured Native Americans including Geronimo. The land was deeded to the state of Alabama in 1895 and the hospital was built in 1902 to relieve overcrowding at Bryce State Hospital. It served African-Americans? exclusively until 1969, when it was desegregated after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted. On May 26, 1988, the Mount Vernon Arsenal/Searcy Hospital Complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District. The current site is made up of 25 buildings over 360 acres. The modern-day Searcy Hospital currently has 408 extended-care beds and a 124-bed intermediate care unit for patients with severe mental illness. It also serves the female forensic in-patient psychiatric center for the southern 1/3 of Alabama. From wiki and state archives